As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
New converged mobile usage models and applications continue to emerge, enabled by integrated wireless technologies operating over a wide range of radio frequency bands. Local, regional and public policy regulations, however, often exist that determine whether frequency bands can be used and, if so, the manner in which they can be used. These regional spectrum and regulatory requirements and their differences make it difficult to manufacture a portable information handling system that will adequately meet these regional regulatory requirements. In addition, the proliferation of wireless technologies complicates this further and makes it even more difficult to provide the end user with all available choices. Examples of existing and new wireless technologies include those related to the following protocols and standards:                3G/4G mobile broadband (cellular mobile phone networks)        Wi-Fi/WLAN (with MIMO support)        Bluetooth        Ultra Wideband (UWB)        Very High Speed UWB (60 GHz)        RFID        Near Field Communications (NFC)        GPS        WiMax (802.16)        802.20 (Flash OFDM)        DVB-H/FLO/DMB-T (mobile TV)        Real-time Multimedia Services        Broadband Wireless Access (‘White Space Spectrum’)        
One solution to this problem of increased wireless technologies and increase regionalization of regulations for these technologies is to keep adding wireless devices, bus interface ports and slots to portable systems and antennas to cover the feature requirements. However, continuing to add integrated wireless devices into mobile computing platforms is not scalable and leads to many problems, including design challenges, unit cost, system complexity and system form factor requirements. For example, design problems caused by increases in the number of wireless devices and slots within a portable information handling system include mechanical form-fit-function problems, electrical connection problems, input/output (I/O) interface problems, thermal problems, EMI issues, antenna structure problems, interference antenna coupling issues, regulatory problems, device identification problems, manufacturing and inventory complexities, and other design problems. Unfortunately, therefore, as electrical I/O bus interfaces and technology-specific antenna structures are incrementally added to cover new technologies to satisfy user demand and usage models, the cost and size of portable systems rapidly increase. The increase in size and complexity drive larger platform form factor sizes, more complex mechanical interconnections, system and hardware identification (ID) problems, and other cost related issues.
In addition, for BTO (build to order) configurations, where customers are selecting configurations, the design problems are further aggravated unless significant limitations are placed upon user selectable options. As such, one solution is to limit technologies and slots within portable information handling systems. In particular, to address the mismatch between a plurality of relevant customer wireless technology options and a limited number of wireless slots within the system, specific technology combinations can be restricted. However, this solution forces contention between multiple electrical I/O bus slots (device/technology) and results in reduced flexibility in addressing potentially relevant technology choices and customer usage requirements.
Although attempts can be made to combine wireless technologies on the same radio card or module, such combinations are often not feasible. Combining or integrating multiple technologies on a single radio cards or integrated circuits often does not work due to technology differences and often will not apply across the wireless technology landscape due to fundamental differences in customer adoption, business models and evolution paths, and silicon technology roadmap complexities. Even when feasible, contentions would still exist within the portable information handling system for slots and antennas.